MANILA: A video allegedly showing Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos inhaling a white powder has been denounced as “fake” and “malicious,” with investigators on Tuesday presenting close-up images of his ear to prove it was not him.
The clip featuring a dark-haired man was part of a video shown at a rally in Los Angeles that was organized by a political group linked to Marcos’s predecessor Rodrigo Duterte.
The rally was livestreamed on the Facebook page of pro-Duterte broadcaster SMNI in the Philippines early Monday local time, hours before Marcos was due to deliver his annual State of the Nation address to Congress.
“It is obvious from the video that that is not our president. Their video is fake and obviously not real,” Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro said Monday, after the video went viral on social media.
Teodoro said it was part of a “serious plan to destabilize our government.”
The video spread rapidly on Facebook, YouTube and TikTok. One Facebook post was viewed at least eight million times.
Duterte’s former spokesman Harry Roque shared it on his Facebook page with a caption in Tagalog reading: “You be the judge.”
It was viewed 17,000 times.
Police forensic experts held a news conference on Tuesday to prove the man in the video was not the president, presenting photos of Marcos and the unidentified man to compare their facial features.
Enlarged images of their faces and right ears were placed side by side to demonstrate that Marcos’s ear was larger in proportion to his face and had a different shape to those of the other man, whose ear curled over at the top.
“Be it AI (artificial intelligence) or imposter or whatever it was, as far as the (police) is concerned that is not the president,” Interior Secretary Benjamin Abalos said Tuesday.
“That is a different person based on the ear. That’s not even considering the jawline and the entire facial structure,” Abalos said, describing the video as “malicious.”
The Marcos and Duterte families have had a bitter, public falling out as they attempt to shore up their rival support bases and secure key positions ahead of the 2025 mid-term elections.
Duterte and Marcos have accused each other of being drug addicts, although neither man has offered proof of their allegations.
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Philippine police deny man inhaling white powder in video is president Marcos
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Philippine police deny man inhaling white powder in video is president Marcos
- Police forensic experts present photos of Marcos and the unidentified man to compare their facial features
Russian strikes cut heating to thousands of buildings in Kyiv amid freezing cold
Russia launched a combined drone and missile attack on Ukraine early on Tuesday, knocking out power and heating supplies to thousands of apartment buildings in Kyiv amid freezing temperatures, Ukrainian officials said.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said the Russian attacks cut heating supplies to 5,635 multi-story residential apartment buildings.
One person was wounded, debris damaged a school building, and water supplies were disrupted on the left bank of the city of more than 3 million people, he said.
Regional officials said one person was killed in attacks in the wider Kyiv region and two petrol stations damaged.
It was the second major attack on the energy sector and other critical infrastructure in the Ukrainian capital so far this month as temperatures hover well below zero Celsius.
“Thousands of houses are without heating in Kyiv at -15°C outside, following Russia’s mass strike overnight,” Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said in a message posted on X.
“(Russian President Vladimir) Putin’s barbaric strike this morning is a wake-up call to world leaders gathering in Davos: support for the Ukrainian people is urgent.”
Sybiha reiterated the call for urgent additional energy assistance, air defense, and interceptors from Ukraine’s allies.
As the war with Russia approaches its four-year mark, diplomatic efforts to find a way to end the conflict have yielded no tangible results so far despite pressure from US President Donald Trump on both Kyiv and Moscow.
Kyiv has already been suffering from severe power and heating outages following previous strikes on the city earlier in January, and dozens of repair crews have worked around the clock for more than a week to restore supplies to residents.
Klitschko said that out of the buildings which were hit in the latest attack, 80 percent had already been struck in the previous attack.
Yaroslav Zhelezniak, a lawmaker from the Holos party, said on the Telegram app that parliament’s support office would work remotely today due to a lack of water and heating in the building. There were no parliamentary sessions scheduled on Tuesday.
Russian strikes also damaged energy and other critical infrastructure in Vinnytsia, Dnipro, Odesa, Zaporizhzhia, Poltava and Sumy regions, Sybiha said.
In the eastern Dnipropetrovsk region, a production facility was hit, and two people were wounded, officials said.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said the Russian attacks cut heating supplies to 5,635 multi-story residential apartment buildings.
One person was wounded, debris damaged a school building, and water supplies were disrupted on the left bank of the city of more than 3 million people, he said.
Regional officials said one person was killed in attacks in the wider Kyiv region and two petrol stations damaged.
It was the second major attack on the energy sector and other critical infrastructure in the Ukrainian capital so far this month as temperatures hover well below zero Celsius.
“Thousands of houses are without heating in Kyiv at -15°C outside, following Russia’s mass strike overnight,” Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said in a message posted on X.
“(Russian President Vladimir) Putin’s barbaric strike this morning is a wake-up call to world leaders gathering in Davos: support for the Ukrainian people is urgent.”
Sybiha reiterated the call for urgent additional energy assistance, air defense, and interceptors from Ukraine’s allies.
As the war with Russia approaches its four-year mark, diplomatic efforts to find a way to end the conflict have yielded no tangible results so far despite pressure from US President Donald Trump on both Kyiv and Moscow.
Kyiv has already been suffering from severe power and heating outages following previous strikes on the city earlier in January, and dozens of repair crews have worked around the clock for more than a week to restore supplies to residents.
Klitschko said that out of the buildings which were hit in the latest attack, 80 percent had already been struck in the previous attack.
Yaroslav Zhelezniak, a lawmaker from the Holos party, said on the Telegram app that parliament’s support office would work remotely today due to a lack of water and heating in the building. There were no parliamentary sessions scheduled on Tuesday.
Russian strikes also damaged energy and other critical infrastructure in Vinnytsia, Dnipro, Odesa, Zaporizhzhia, Poltava and Sumy regions, Sybiha said.
In the eastern Dnipropetrovsk region, a production facility was hit, and two people were wounded, officials said.
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